In mobile communication networks, dropped connections are undesired and can cause significant frustration for end users. It is thus desired to detect and measure dropped connections as part of a quality measurement or key performance indicator (KPI). In modern mobile communication networks such as Long Term Evolution (LTE) of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the measurement for drop rate is calculated using dropped connections, which is dropped bearers when there is remaining data in the buffer, and a session duration, determined to end 100 ms after the last data transfer over the buffer. Such an approach may work for best-effort type traffic, such as web or e-mail data. However, determining dropped connections and drop rate in this way is not suitable for real-time services such as voice conversations or streaming media. For example, during established voice conversations, inactive periods of up to 160 ms are common, e.g. between silence descriptors.
One way to customise the measurement for real-time services could be to increase the session time beyond the 100 ms after the last data transfer. However, this has the disadvantage of best-effort type traffic having session times which are longer than what reflects the service used.